Ask Tom - August 2006

Protection for You and Your Rider

By J. Thomas McGrath, Attorney

You put on your leathers. You put on your boots. You put on your gloves. You put on your helmet. You check your bike. You crank it. You look both ways. You pull away from the curb. You go down the road thinking how wonderful it is to ride a motorcycle. You’ve done all the right things. You’re wearing all the right equipment. You’re taking all the precautions you know you have to take to feel safe. You know there is always the possibility that someone might not see you and cause a crash, but this doesn’t worry you because you know they have insurance.

So, you feel like you’re pretty safe: but are you? Over eighty percent of motorcycle accidents are the fault of the automobile driver. In most cases, the automobile driver has insurance, but is it going to be enough? In other words, are you going to be adequately covered by what someone else has purchased to protect you? Aren’t we all subject to the same advertising that tells us to save money on our car insurance? When your agent sells you a policy with Virginia minimum limits of $25,000, do you stop to think, is this going to be enough to cover someone I injure? You don’t think you’re going to injure anyone. Instead, you look at the dollars and go for the lowest price. In doing this you are selling yourself short. You are not protecting yourself. Let me explain.

In Virginia, the amount of liability insurance you purchase to protect someone you accidentally injure is the same amount of uninsured/underinsured motorist protection that you get. This is the cardinal rule to remember. This is automatic. This is true on each motor vehicle (car, truck, motorcycle) liability insurance policy you purchase, unless you specifically reject this coverage in writing. Why is this important? This is important because this is the way you are going to protect yourself. Let’s go back to where you were on your bike; you are going down the street and someone pulls out in front of you causing a collision. He didn’t see you. You’re laid up in the hospital and you’ve got a fractured femur, you’ve got a good health insurance plan and that health insurance plan will pay your medical bills. Let’s go one step further and say you have a good employer and you have a lot of sick leave so you are going to continue to receive your wages.

Your femur injury is going to require an internal fixation. They have to operate and put your leg back together and they bolt it and screw it and they put some internal pins in there and keep the whole thing wired up and its going to take you about six months or more before you’re able to walk without crutches and you’re going to have some permanent disability. The guy who hit you had $25,000 of coverage, the Virginia minimum limit, what the law says each car has to have. Your medical bills are going to run around $40,000 to $50,000, but this is covered by your medical insurance; you’ve lost six months of work and you’ve had to use your leave time. All you’re going to recover is $25,000.

Is this going to be enough? Is this going to be fair for what you’ve been through? Is this a fair amount? Let’s suppose you don’t have an employer who is going to pay you while you’re out, so you’ve lost $10,000 in wages. Let’s assume also, that you don’t have medical insurance or what you have doesn’t pay all the bills. $25,000 insurance certainly is not going to be enough to pay your bills and compensate you for what you’ve been through.

Is there a solution to this problem? Indeed there is. The answer is purchasing higher limits of liability insurance. Remember the rule: “The more liability insurance you have, the more uninsured/underinsured motorist protection you get.” How will my uninsured/underinsured motorist protection make a difference? Here’s how it works in Virginia.

If you have a $100,000 liability insurance policy with $100,000 uninsured/underinsured motorist protection and the person who causes the wreck has a $25,000 liability policy, once his company has offered its $25,000, you are eligible to receive from your company up to $75,000 under the underinsured motorist provision of your policy. Your company has charged you a premium for this protection!

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Questions: Please call 1-800-321-8968

© 1997

The preceding is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal advice. Before attempting to settle any claim you should contact an attorney. The rules governing insurance coverage may be different in your state .

Tom McGrath is a personal injury lawyer with credentials that are rare in his profession. When Tom's not lawyering, he's lobbying to protect your rights, or crisscrossing the Commonwealth teaching motorists and motorcyclists about their rights, helping them to understand the insurance laws and how to protect themselves and their loved ones. Got a question? Send Tom an email at tom@tommcgrathlaw.com, or visit http://www.motorcyclevirginia.com/.

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